and i remember every second
by between the waves
Summary: Spoilers for 4x18. There's so many ways this can go. Their story can switch genres, run from tragedy to a comedy of errors- all it really takes is a second.


a/n: this is super-rough and totally unbeta'd. apologies. there are some spoilers for 4x18, but this is all speculation.  
>summary: There's so many ways this can go. Their story can switch genres, run from tragedy to a comedy of errors- all it really takes is a second.<p>

Disclaimer: Castle is not mine and is the sole property of Andrew Marlowe and ABC Studios. No copyright infringement is intended and I make no profit from this.

* * *

><p><strong>one.<strong>

He walks out of the precinct that afternoon and never comes back.

She calls, eventually. Of course she calls, but there's no answer.

...

_"Hey, you've reached Rick Castle, leave me a message or try a carrier pigeon."_

_"Hi. I don't know if..." a pained sigh, a long pause- she breathes down the line, waits for a beep to tell her there's a call waiting so she can make some joke about it before she hangs up on his voicemail. There's nothing but faint static. "Call me. Please."_

_Lather, rinse, repeat._

_Thirteen calls, seven voicemails, and three text messages later, she realizes he's not listening anymore._

_..._

His doorman no longer welcomes her with a friendly smile. Instead he pretends she's not there and after a half hour of waiting around it's clear he's not going to crack anytime soon.

She taps on the glass of the door; Eduardo comes closer but still doesn't open it- as if she's some criminal who would push past him and rush upstairs if he did. Both, she supposes, could be considered accurate. In Bible times lying was a crime punishable by death.

"Sorry Detective. Mister Castle's orders."

She opens her mouth to say something else but he only shakes his head, gives her a sad smile and walks back to his desk.

...

_Ring. Ring. Ring. Tone._

_"We're sorry, but the number you are trying to reach is disconnected or no longer in service. Please hang up and try again."_

_She hangs up._

_She does not try again._

_..._

His upcoming appearances in the city have been canceled, she finds out, instead replaced by a European tour that starts in a week.

She thinks she remembers hearing him blow off Paula or Gina or somebody over the phone about this tour, just weeks ago- they'd laughed about it after the call ended.

She's not laughing now, and she hasn't been in the fifteen days since she's last seen him.

Weeks pass. Months. It's almost been a year when her mother's case comes up again. The boys try, they really do. Doctor Burke helps where he can, but what's the point? They're closing the net now, around one of the most powerful men on the east coast, strands falling into place one after the other. Still, it's slow going. They think they've been careful enough this time.

_(they haven't been, but how could she know that?)_

If all goes well, the bust will be tomorrow- maybe then she can finally close this. After that, well. She doesn't really know anymore.

She sits down and starts writing.

...

Across town, a phone rings.

"You have to get to her now, they're going to kill her."

Twelve words and the line goes dead.

It's not even a decision. Whatever else they've done to each other, this one truth remains: that he loves her, and it's not enough to keep them together, but maybe- just maybe it'll be enough to keep her alive. He's out the door before his phone goes dark.

...

The words on the page aren't enough- nothing's enough anymore, but they're all she has and there's a bizarre symmetry to them that she thinks he would've appreciated.

_Castle,_

_I'm sorry._  
><em>I miss you.<em>  
><em>I love you.<em>

_Kate_

_..._

She folds them away, encloses them in a stamped envelope bearing his name and address, slipped in the small folder she keeps for outgoing mail.

She slumps, cradles her head in her hands and lets herself cry for the first time. This is it.

Her phone rings, accompanied by a frantic pounding on the front door.

There is a gunshot, the sound of a glass window breaking, and the heavy creak of her door flying off its hinges.

There is a frantic voice hovering over her before she hits the ground.

There is nothing.

* * *

><p><strong>two<strong>

His mother is there when he gets home, steadfastly refusing to let him drown himself in self pity. Or scotch.

She airily says she refuses to let him succumb to quite that much cliché but behind it he can see the fear of a parent for their child.

It's a while before he stops pacing long enough to listen to her, but when he does- the battery of his cell phone has gone dead and he has no idea anymore how many times Beckett's tried to call him.

"She lied to you."

He nods.

"You're upset."

He gives her an unusually scathing look- normally he's kinder, she is his mother after all.

"You had to know this was a possibility darling." Martha pauses, studying his expression and as usual she doesn't miss a beat. "You did know, or at least you suspected."

His silence is answer enough.

"Oh, Richard- what's really the problem here?"

He doesn't say anything for a long time, but after this many decades it seems his mother has learned how to translate his rhythms, his pauses and his silences, so she waits him out.

"She lied to me, but she can tell a suspect like it's nothing? She can use it like it's just another bargaining chip to get the truth out of some homicidal maniac, but she can't tell me to my face? I'm a fool," he finally concludes, exhaling a bitter laugh. Joke's on me.

His mother gives him a brief, mutinous look before she schools her features into something more resembling calm.

"Richard, snap out of it. You've lied to that girl. Gone behind her back, worked her case, _her mother's case, _kept things from her, and why?"

The shock ripples through him long before he can tamp it down, but- "That's different, that's to protect her and-"

"A lie is a lie, my boy, and a truth is a truth. You'd best get down to figuring out which one loving her is."

Lies of omission, lies of commission, white lies, and secrets. It goes on and on and he's so tired of it.

His mother leaves him alone then, drags a gentling hand along the set line of his shoulders on her way out of his office, leaving him to stare at the blank screen across from him.

...

Hours later, he sits in the darkened living room and stares at his ceiling, trying to discern patterns where none exist in the smooth coat of paint above him.

A text message arrives.

_BECKETT, KATE (03:29) - I love you. Stay with me, Rick._

He stares at it for so long his eyes blur. His mind skitters between then, with her blood on his hands and the grass and now- sitting here not knowing what to think or how to answer.

In the end, it's simple.

_CASTLE, RICK (03:47) - Always._

He hears a familiar chirp, and then a muffled sob somewhere from the vicinity of his front door. She loses her balance when he flings the door open, spills inside like the rain and lets her own tears fall when they catch each other.

* * *

><p><strong>three<strong>

She catches him before he can get out of the precinct, urged on by Ryan and Esposito who fill her in on where he was during the interrogation. He takes the elevator, but she runs for the stairs, knowing they're faster and ignoring the stitch in her side, the violent ache of protest at the jarring motions. Comes out just in time to catch him rushing out of the elevator, and knows with sudden, blinding clarity that if he walks out those doors she may never see him again.

"Castle!"

He freezes, unable or unwilling to look at her, and she strides forward, trying to catch her breath at the same time.

"What's up, Beckett? I was about to head home and get some writing done." His tone is too light, his smile too fake. She catches the brittle edges of it and wonders if he always feels like this- feels the way she does- constantly in the process of cracking apart at the seams and gluing the pieces back together.

"We need to talk," she gets out, closing one arm around his hand and forcing herself to meet his eyes, hesitant, shaken, but all there. For the first time she sees the whole picture, exactly what she will lose, what he will lose, before they even really had a chance to start.

"Please," she adds.

...

Talking, as it turns out, becomes about ten percent verbal communication and ninety percent kissing. And other things.

Perhaps yanking him into a janitor's closet on the first floor for their conversation wasn't her brightest idea.

"I love you," she gasps around his mouth, catches his answer with the smile that is slowly growing on her face, and holds on.

* * *

><p><strong>four<strong>

He never sees her again.

He's rushes out of the precinct and he can't see, can't think about it, especially can't think about her. He's crossing the street, heedless, long before the truck driver frantically honking at him can stop.

She's one of the first on scene, but he's already gone.

She doesn't go to the funeral. He's gone.

_Frozen Heat _is released that summer, and in the wake of his death it's his best selling book ever. He's still gone.

She reads every review.

He's given Nikki and Rook the happy ending they'll never get, and for once the critics applaud the choice to end a series on a high note. They call the wedding scene a modern day fairytale and mourn the loss of a man they hail as one of the most compelling writers of the twenty first century.

Paula organizes a series of interviews with the people who worked with him to create the series. Kate throws the paper down when she reads a quote from Gina, learns that there were two endings written for the story- one in case the series was picked up for more books and another in case it wasn't, but that all along, the goal was a happy ending.

* * *

><p><strong>five<strong>

There's so many ways this can go. Their story can switch genres, run from tragedy to a comedy of errors- all it really takes is a second.

Here's how it actually happens:

It takes a week.

A week with no coffees, no early morning text messages, no inappropriate jokes to pretend not to be amused by- actually not much to smile about at all.

The precinct feels frighteningly empty without him there, larger than life and pulling her pigtails. She doesn't know quite how to do this without him anymore, finds herself turning to ask him something half a dozen times a day. A dozen more times she remembers that he's not there before she can.

She's talked it to death with Lanie, gotten more sympathetic looks than she knows what to do with from the boys, and even Gates is starting to look at her a little oddly. This one's all her, she thinks, and that makes it worse.

It's just past lunch when she gives up, grabbing her trench coat from where it was draped across his chair, holding his place. Where it has been every day for the last week.

"Espo, cover for me, I'll be back in a couple hours."

"You got it."

She pretends she doesn't see the encouraged look the boys share when she steps onto the elevator.

...

Kate goes back and forth with herself over it so many times she's dizzy by the time she reaches his block and begins the search for parking. She doesn't have a plan on this one, she realizes. Flying blind, without backup- but even that's a lie. She's got backup, she just doesn't know if he still wants to...

A spot opens up on the corner, a few doors down from his building, and there lies the answer.

She's carrying two travel cups from the cafe on the corner. They sometimes stop there when Castle doesn't have time to brew their coffee in the mornings. She reaches the front door, wondering if she'll be granted access when it swings open, and there he is.

It's only been a week, but she drinks him in, eyes lingering hungrily, like it's been years. In the silence, or at least what passes for it in New York City, she realizes he's doing the same.

His posture loosens up around the exact moment hers does- when his eyes land on the twin coffee cups she holds and her gaze locks on the matching ones in his grasp.

He gives her a wary smile, a pale shadow of the grin she's grown to love, but now she has a plan. Has backup, because he's still her partner and she knows what that smile must've cost him- knows that he did it for her so she matches it with one of her own.  
>It's timid, hesitant, and so achingly new, but it's there, leaving her feeling young and bright in the sunshine.<p>

"I- I heard I owe you about a hundred coffees," she murmurs. "Here's one."

She knows every word of what she's written on the cardboard sleeve, and so she hands it off to him, participates in a slightly awkward swap, and starts talking as they fall into step.

"I remember. But really, I never forgot..."


End file.
